Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How apps can increase student engagement

In almost every endeavor, success depends on engaging your customers to ensure their success and keep them coming back. Colleges and universities need to continually monitor student (i.e., customer) satisfaction and track their success, just as stores and businesses do. Just as retailers use mobile apps to greet shoppers and guide them through their store, college apps can welcome students onto campus, provide maps, and point out landmarks. It’s vital for universities to provide a direct channel to connect with their students.

The mobile engagement app has emerged to address this need and to provide the means to track, interact with, retain, and even monetize the user base. When designed properly, everyone gains from the mobile engagement app. Students are more satisfied, safer, and more productive. The school gains valuable feedback. However, when executed poorly, mobile apps can suffer from low download rates, and become abandoned, forgotten or deleted.

How higher ed uses apps to increase student engagement…Read More

10 apps to use for the 2017-2018 term

From apps that manage finances and credit scores to those that find scholarships for all education levels, and from apps that better organize collaborative projects to those that allow for unprecedented organization of scholarly articles, these higher education apps have major potential for the 2017-2018 term.

Used any of the apps listed? Have some suggestions of your own? Be sure to leave your comments in the comment section below.

[Listed in alphabetical order]…Read More

Promising: Trending college model sees boost in student success

I’ve always considered myself a good student. Ask my parents—I think they’d agree. I would dutifully tote textbooks and color-coded binders with matching dividers around everywhere I went, from home to school, school to after-school practices, practices to my part-time job, and then back home every evening, studying any chance I could.

Oh, how things have changed.

Now students have access to all those learning materials and resources from the touch of a small, light-weight device. They can access what they need from anywhere, regardless of what device they are using. In a world of constant change and continuous improvement, finding paths that will encourage student growth, success, and retention are vital in our educational strategies.…Read More

This technology will dominate higher ed within 5 years

Like many other industries, much of the change occurring in colleges and universities is driven by the rise of mobile devices, the consumerization of IT, and higher customer expectations. With so many educational choices both on-campus and online, institutions have had to set aside their aversion for change in order to meet the digital desires of a new generation of students and compete on a global scale. But what will higher ed’s strategic digital efforts look like in the future?

Then: Simply Keeping Pace

Along with the economic downturn of the late 2000s that caused students, parents, and even prospective employers to begin questioning the value of a college degree, which resulted trends in career and employability-focused education programs and CBE, as well as the replacement of legacy administrative systems with more modern systems, the move to a more digital campus has also been driven in a large part by the demands of a tech savvy-generation raised with smart device in hand and accustomed to anytime, anywhere access to information. Accreditation agencies today are not only looking at student competency and course offerings when rating performance — they’re also looking at student satisfaction surveys and student outcomes.…Read More

Want an inclusive student experience? Yes, there’s a campus app for that

Post-secondary institutions today are as diverse as the cities they’re located in. But diversity has its challenges, especially when it comes to keeping students engaged and promoting an inclusive student experience. As college graduation rates are declining, it is more important than ever for higher education institutions to focus on retention strategies. While many major universities talk about improving graduation rates, University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is actually doing something about it.

According to an article in UTSA Today, UTSA received a five-year, $3.25 million Title V collaborative grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2015 to create the PIVOT for Academic Success Program. The program aims to prepare, inspire, validate, orient and transition (PIVOT) students, including increasing the number of first-time, full-time Latino, low socioeconomic and first-generation students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

This investment comes at a critical time as, according to a recent Pew Research study, Latinos still lag behind other ethnicity groups in obtaining four-year degrees. The study revealed that as of 2014, only 15 percent of Latinos ages 25-29 had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 22 percent of African Americans, 41 percent of Caucasians and 63 percent of Asians.…Read More

3 ways new-to-online students can thrive with virtual learning

Digital learning opportunities are widely available and abundant today. From MOOCs to digital study aids to virtual tutoring, there are many ways for students to hone their academic skills while still maintaining flexibility in their schedules. An added bonus? They can often do this from the comfort and convenience of their own computer, smartphone, or other electronic device.

What’s more, virtual experiences are not only becoming more prevalent in the academic realm, but in the professional sphere as well. This can be seen in the increase in remote workforces and online courses/graduate programs.

Students can benefit from the availability of virtual learning experiences, not just in augmenting their current learning experiences, but in helping to prepare them for the real world. The key is in knowing how to use these resources to their advantage. But when the virtual learning concept may seem foreign to some, how can they best approach it?…Read More

4 reasons why mobile is making unprecedented gains in student recruiting

Universities around the world rely heavily on traditional marketing strategies—direct mail, college fairs, physical ads in public transit, billboards, campus visits and other antiquated best practices—to attract candidates to their programs. Despite the advent of the internet, big data and the mobile revolution, higher ed recruiting has remained unchanged for decades.

Few universities have begun to invest in digital marketing to build brand awareness or increase program penetration, despite the effectiveness of search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, social media initiatives and email marketing campaigns.

With the emergence and growing popularity of new online and mobile media, marketing strategies for higher educational institutions are in need of a complete overhaul.…Read More

University’s eText program saves students over $3.5 million

The spring semester numbers are in: Indiana University’s eText program continues to save students millions of dollars every year, while delivering course materials straight to their digital devices before the first day of class.

Over 40,000 IU students used at least one eText from IU’s direct partnerships with publishers for digital course materials. This is part of IU’s overall efforts to reduce the total cost of attendance while also improving education in the digital age.

Professor Nancy Evans, who teaches computer information technology at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus, is an early adopter of eTexts and a fan.…Read More

App revolutionizes digital credentials, wins higher ed industry award

Digital platform pioneer Credly, in partnership with Lumina Foundation, the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the American Council on Education (ACE), announced today the winner of a special ideation challenge aimed at generating breakthrough ideas to help bridge the skills gap for education and industry association leaders.

The winning submission by Chicago-based architect Larry Kearns is a concept for a web-based recruiting ecosystem that matches candidates with potential employers based on a data-driven record of their perspectives and skills, verified by digital credentials.

The judging panel found that Kearns’ proposal for a skill matching application brought a unique perspective to connecting employers and employees and offered an innovative approach to learning pathway design and the role played by industry and trade associations.…Read More

3 considerations for going BYOA on campus

While many higher-ed IT departments are still struggling to handle the flood of mobile devices onto campus networks, some industry experts now advise institutions to adopt a broader strategy that goes beyond BYOD to encompass the applications they run, too.

“We are transitioning from BYOD to bring-your-own-application (BYOA)—it’s really about the application,” said Chris LaPoint, vice president of product management at SolarWinds, a Texas-based company that develops IT management software. “The applications that run on those devices are potentially more important than the fact that these devices are showing up on the network. That’s the landscape of the problem.”

According to LaPoint, BYOD and BYOA must be tackled as part of an integrated strategy that rests on three key considerations:…Read More